LEARN Democracy

The LEARN program at Holy Heart is designed to provide refugee students with significant education gaps the literacy and numeracy skills they need to succeed in Canadian society, as well as the essential content knowledge and strategies they require for successful transition into the mainstream education system. Throughout the LEARN program our goal is to help newcomer students to become fully participating members of our community. One of the aspects of our society that is new to most of our students in the idea of democracy. Many of our students have been socialized into undemocratic systems of government that failed them, leaving them with a distrust of government officials and institutions. One of the goals of the LEARN Social Studies course is to provide students with learning experiences will allow them to understand and adapt to our democratic system of government.

Update (February 19, 2013)

The LEARN Program at Holy Heart is designed to help refugee students with significant education gaps gain the knowledge and skills they need for life in Canada and for success in school. Many of our refugee students have had negative and sometimes traumatic experiences with governments and institutions in their country of origin. We feel it is important that these students and their families begin to develop positive experiences with the governments and institutions in this, their new found home. Thanks to the support of imagineaction we have been able to purchase additional democracy learning resources for use in our LEARN Social Studies class to help students understand the elections process in Canada. In addition, on Monday, Feb 18th, 23 LEARN students traveled to Confederation Building for a guided tour, followed by pizza for lunch with some MHAs and their staff. The students had a great time, it was definitely a positive experience that everyone will remember fondly.

Update (February 26, 2013)

Part of the LEARN Democracy project involved acquiring classroom resources for use in lessons about democracy in Canada. These resources include a class set of Elections in Canada workbooks, posters of Parliament, the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as videos about the Prime Ministers of Canada and the Senate. These resources are being used to introduce students to the Canadian system of government and to familiarize them with the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. In the picture, the LEARN Social Studies can be seen reading their Elections in Canada workbooks.